Convert image to binary and upload to database using ASP.NET

This article is about uploading images to server/database using ASP.NET. For uploading an image to database ,it has to be first converted to binary format. Then it has to be saved to a database table; the table should have a column with data type [image] for storing the binary image data.

Ok, enough of theory. Let us try out an example.

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1) Create a ASP.NET web application using VS2008/2010

2) In default.aspx provide a input control of type “file” and a button

<input type="file" runat="server" id="photoupload" />
<asp:Button runat="server" ID="btnSave" Text="Save" onclick="btnSave_Click"/>

3) Create a function to convert stream to byte[]

public byte[] StreamToByteArray(Stream input)
{
    byte[] total_stream = new byte[0];
    byte[] stream_array = new byte[0];
    byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];

    int read = 0;
    while ((read = input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length )) > 0)
    {
 stream_array = new byte[total_stream.Length + read];
 total_stream.CopyTo(stream_array, 0);
 Array.Copy(buffer, 0, stream_array, total_stream.Length, read);
 total_stream = stream_array;
    }

    return total_stream;
}

4) In the button click event, write code to get the stream from uploaded image and convert to byte array.(Import System.IO- using System.IO;)

Stream oStream = photoupload.PostedFile.InputStream;
byte[] arr = StreamToByteArray(oStream);
oStream.Close();
oStream.Dispose();

5) Now pass the byte[] data to database

SqlConnection oConnection= new SqlConnection("[connectionstring]”);
SqlParameter oParam1 = new SqlParameter("@data", arr);
oParam1.DbType = System.Data.DbType.Binary;
SqlParameter oParam2 = new SqlParameter("@description", photoupload.PostedFile.FileName);

SqlCommand oCommand = new SqlCommand(“[storedprocname]”);
oCommand.Parameters.Add(oParam1);
oCommand.Parameters.Add(oParam2);

oCommand.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
oCommand.Connection = oConnection;
oConnection.Open();
int i = oCommand.ExecuteNonQuery();
oConnection.Close();

Done! Now the image is saved in database.

6) Code snippet for getting the binary data back from database is given below

/*Get binary data into dataset*/
DataSet ds = oDal.GetData("[stored procedure name]" + photoid.ToString());

byte[] arr = (byte[])ds.Tables[0].Rows[0]["data"];
MemoryStream oStream = new MemoryStream(arr);
Response.ContentType = "image/png";
Response.BinaryWrite(arr);